"There is no ruler who can compare in virtue with a condition of non-rule" -Pau Ching-yen

Posts tagged ‘Facebook’

In this Facebook conversation hosted by the most excellent Facebook page ever, Capitalism, the question is raised how heavy the tax burden in Sweden actually is. Hey, I’m a Swede! I should be able to answer that! Or, maybe, I can’t. This is my “answer” so far:

We have so many taxes in Sweden that it’s hard to figure out how much tax the government forces off of us. That’s by design I guess. For the income tax we have “Progressive” taxing. Meaning that above a certain level of income you are forced to “pay” a higher percentage in tax. I think this maxes out at just under 60%. But then there’s another income tax that they call “employer tax” that amounts to 33% of the salary, taken before you robbed of those 60%… Then we pay high VAT taxes (25%) on everything you buy. And then there are lots and lots of other taxes… 80% sounds like a good guess.
Another way to look at it is how much of the GDP that is government spending. According the The Heritage Organization that figure is 53% for Sweden: http://www.heritage.org/index/Country/Sweden#government-spending But I wonder if the spending of more local authorities are included there.